


Reunion

by livy_bear



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya is soft for 1 (one) man, F/M, Jon Snow Knows Something, Love Confessions, Post-Battle of Winterfell | Final Battle Against the White Walkers, Pre-Battle of Winterfell | Final Battle Against the White Walkers, Reunions, first chapter is pre forge sex, in the second chapter, not yet but soon, second chapter is post forge sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livy_bear/pseuds/livy_bear
Summary: Arya and Gendry reunite in Winterfell before the Battle for the Dawn, and they find each other after.--A sweet simple fic with two chapters because I wasn't happy with their reunion in the show, and I wish we could have seen them finding each other after the battle.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Jon Snow & Gendry Waters
Comments: 18
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

Arya was in the crowd watching as the horses went by. She was tracking faces of the soldiers as much as she was chasing her childhood excitement of seeing an envoy come to Winterfell. She knew nothing would quite live up to the first moment she saw the riders with the banners for both Houses Baratheon and Lannister billowing out behind them as the King rode in. But she thought this might be a very close second. The army of Unsullied moved like one organism, their steps never faltering, sounding like the rumble of thunder as they struck the ground. She admired the way they accounted for the horses slightly more unpredictable movements, and the very stark contrast to the way the Dothraki rode in behind them. They had an order and a precedence, sure, but the Unsullied were a mountain.

When Daenerys went past with Jon at her side, Arya stood straighter. She stared at her brother hoping to catch his eye. She felt the urge to call his name rise up in her throat, but she bit it back. Surely he would see her, feel her gaze in the crowd and know she was there. He didn’t. He rode past, eyes fixed forwards. He looked good—whole and healthy. Arya thought he looked more like Ned Stark than he ever had before, with his hair pulled back and the cut of his leathers. Their father would be proud. She swallowed down her disappointment. Next passed a carriage carrying Varys and Tyrion Lannister. She paid them no mind, eyes catching on the Hound. Somehow, impossibly, alive and well. 

She… really wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Arya didn’t have much time to figure it out as the next person to come along nearly knocked the wind right out of her. 

Gendry.

Gendry had lived. He was _right there_. He wouldn’t see her, she knew. He would be too focused on riding the horse to pay much mind to the people around him. She could immediately tell the way he sat in the saddle that he was at least better than a total beginner horseman. He wouldn’t fall off. She had a sudden deep desire to see the look on his face as he road in to Winterfell for the first time. If she moved quickly, she might be able to beat the party back to the gates. 

Arya turned, fluidly making her way back through the crowd of townsfolk to her horse. She had barely seated herself before she was compelling the animal into a gallop. The Queen may have taken the main road in, but that by no means made it the fastest route—only the safest. Arya led her mare over the hills the way she’d memorized as a child. The snow made it a little harder, but it helped that her horse had trod it to get into town earlier. The only time she allowed herself to pause was to take in the dragons as they soared overhead. 

She burst in through the gate, mayhaps mere minutes ahead of Jon. Sansa was standing in the center of Winterfell’s main courtyard, Bran beside her. She took one look at Arya, fondly rolling her eyes. Arya shot her sister a small smile, leaping from the saddle and handing the reigns to Wyllem, the stableboy. 

“Make sure she’s well fed and watered,” Arya instructed. “She worked hard to get here in time.” The boy nodded, pulling her horse towards the stables where the other hands and stable master were standing. 

Arya resettled bits of her clothing after riding, and took her place next to her sister. Sansa glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “I thought you were going to watch from town?”

Arya shrugged, “Changed my mind.”

Sansa might have replied had the bannermen and the Unsullied not come through the gates. Arya watched as Jon quickly broke ranks to ride forward to them. She spared a look to the Dragon Queen to see her reaction, but saw only patience and tenderness at Jon’s eagerness to get to them. Very quickly Jon was kissing Bran on the forehead, and exchanging words; then he was moving to Arya. She let out a heavy breath and flung herself into his arms. It felt as if the moment her feet left the ground as he hugged her, so too did she leave her body behind, and all that was left was the little girl who never wanted to leave her brother. 

He put her back on the ground, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“You used to be taller,” she teased. He laughed.

“You still have it?” he gestured to the sword strapped at her hip.

“Needle,” she confirmed.

His eyes hardened ever so slightly, “Have you ever used it?”

“Once or twice.”

Jon looked at her, something passing between them, a shared pain, a shared knowledge of Death. He nodded as if confirming something to himself and moved to greet Sansa. Arya took that moment to take in the rest of the party as they came in. The wheelhouse had come through the gate and the occupants just now disembarking. She watched the Hound ride in and immediately ignore any propriety that would have him greet his hosts. He dismounted, handed off his horse, and tread off to somewhere else. She paid him little mind, searching out the person she’d rode back so quickly for. And gods be good, she caught him right as he came through the gates.

Arya knew he must be trying to fight it, but his eyes went wide as he took in the size of her home. She watched him jump from tower to tower, eyes climbing their heights before dropping down to the base of the next one. She knew it was no Red Keep, but Winterfell was vast and sturdy. It had stood the test of time, and she had to admit… she was a little proud. Smug even.

His horse stopped behind Daenerys, who Jon had (at _some_ point) beckoned forward to meet Sansa. Arya was hardly paying attention. She watched Gendry dismount and begin to amble to the side when his eyes caught hers. _Finally._

He froze in place.

Arya felt a smile fully overtake her face.

His jaw dropped open, and it seemed like he said her name, though it wasn’t loud enough to carry.

She took a step forward.

He did the same.

Soon she was walking, running towards him. She completely ignored the Queen and her family, vaguely registering Sansa saying her name abortedly. 

He was so close. Arya was almost sure if she didn’t reach him in time, he’d turn to smoke and disappear from in front of her. He seemed to find that same urgency.

They crashed into each other. Her arms went around his neck, and his tightly around her torso. She buried her face in his neck, and one of his hands came up to cup the back of her head. He smelled the same—just like woodsmoke and hot metal. His hair was shorn near to the scalp, which made his ears stick out in a way she’d never noticed they had before. But his arms still felt the same around her, and his voice was still the same when he whispered her name disbelievingly. 

“I thought you were dead,” she muttered into his skin.

“I thought _you_ were dead!” he replied.

“Almost,” she whispered.

He pulled back to look at her. Something in his eyes made her heart feel like it was cracking in two. “Arya,” his hands left her back to hold her face. He still didn’t look like he believed that she was standing right there in front of him. 

“I know,” she didn’t quite know what she was agreeing to, but his eyes softened, the urgency leaving his face. And she knew it was the right thing to say. He dropped his hands from her face then, resting them unconsciously on her hips.

“You always wanted me to come to Winterfell,” he joked. “Took the long way ‘round, but.”

Arya laughed loudly, gently shoving his chest. Gendry chuckled back at her, not loosening his grip on her in the slightest. She didn’t want him to either. She felt more settled in her own skin than she had since reclaiming her face. Something about Gendry stripped away her barriers; she didn’t have to be strong or unbreakable with him. He’d seen her at her worst, and her most vulnerable. He’d _seen_ her.

Arya felt someone come up behind her, and turned to see Jon. He was looking between the two of them carefully, something in his eyes Arya couldn’t place just yet. “I wasn’t aware the two of you knew each other,” he said.

Gendry dropped his hands from her, and took a small step back. She rolled her eyes, “I’ve known Gendry nearly half my life.”

“Is that so,” Jon turned his eyes to Gendry.

“We met in Kings Landing,” he explained. “After I’d been sold to the Nights Watch, and Arry—uh, Lady Arya was dressed up like a boy.”

“Not a lady,” Arya mumbled.

“Yes, milady,” Gendry nodded to her. “Of course, milady. My apologies—” she reached out to shove him again. His eyes danced when they connected with hers. They were so _blue_ ; she could get lost in those eyes for hours, Arya thought. Jon clearing his throat brought her focus back to him.

“It’s good you know each other,” he said, looking between the two of them again. “We’ll all need to be able to work together in the war to come.”

That shifted the mood quickly. Gendry’s face hardened and he nodded to Jon. He shot a look to Arya, tightly smiling. “I’ll see you later,” he promised before walking towards where the carts of dragon glass had come through the gates. 

She watched him go, and then turned back to join her siblings. She would see him later, _that_ she promised herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Battle of Winterfell. Oops I made it longer than the first.

Gendry felt his muscles scream at him as he crashed his hammer into dead man after dead man. It felt never-ending. It _was_ never-ending. He was only partly aware of who was near him and where he was standing. He knew at some point he’d made his way back behind the safety of Winterfell’s walls. Every so often he heard the roar of dragon fire, and felt the next swing of his hammer come a little easier.

He hadn’t seen Arya, Davos, or Jon since the fighting began. He hoped to all the gods that would listen that they were alive. He hoped that _he_ was alive, and not stuck in one of the seven hells endlessly living these horrific hours. The burn of air entering his lungs as he craved a rest, a drink of water, anything but the monotony of fighting for his life. Giving every fiber of his being to every single move he made was the single most exhausting thing he’d ever done.

And then suddenly it was over.

He watched in awe as all of the bodies of dead comrades and enemies alike shattered or collapsed to the ground. Then did he allow himself to take in his surroundings. There were more men left standing than he expected, he could just barely make out the edge of the courtyard where Brienne stood, armor glinting in the torchlight. She was alive then. Good.

Who else was?

Quickly, Gendry stumbled his way down the hill of bodies he’d been standing on looking at every face he saw—living or dead, simultaneously hoping and fearing he’d see one he recognized. Eventually through the haze of the night and smoke from the many fires, he found Davos already helping men clear the way to the gates. 

Davos caught his eye, and immediately came to stand in front of Gendry, clapping him on the shoulders. They shared a beat of relief before Davos pulled Gendry forward into a brief but tight hug. When he pulled back, he shook Gendry gently. “Good to see you living, lad.”

“You too,” he breathed, feeling his fingers finally begin to relax his grip on his hammer. “Have you seen—”

“Jon!” The call interrupted Gendry, finishing his question for him. He turned around to see Lady Sansa running straight towards her brother. Jon looked exhausted, but didn’t hesitate to catch his sister up in his arms. The began talking quietly to each other, and Gendry and Davos made their way over. Unconsciously, the two had made the same decision.

“Your grace,” Davos greeted. Gendry stifled a small grin as Jon grimaced, chaffing under his title the way Arya so often did. Arya—

Gendry whipped his head around, once again taking in the faces of the courtyard. He was only half listening to the conversation happening next to him. Something about Jon not being the one to ‘do it’ whatever _it_ was. Probably the Night King. Gendry glanced behind where Jon had come from. Sure that Arya must be somewhere near her brother. But she wasn’t. She hadn’t come with him. Which meant she was surely somewhere else in the castle. She had to be. Should couldn’t be—

“Have you seen Arya?” Gendry asked, turning back to conversation. Lady Sansa halted whatever she was saying, raising a delicate eyebrow at him. 

“I haven’t seen her since before I went to the crypts,” she replied, a hint of worry in her tone. Gendry thought she must be out of her mind with fear if she let that much of the emotion slip into her tone. He looked to Jon and Davos.

“I saw her on the walls,” Davos said. “She moved like a bloody force of nature. Never seen anyone fight like that. Took a tumble, though, and I didn’t see her after.”

“So no one knows where she is?” Gendry clarified, feeling traces of panic rise up in his throat.

“We haven’t been standing here a minute, Gendry,” Jon snapped. “We’ll find her.” 

There was something in Jon’s tone that shut him up. He felt a bit like a scolded child. These were her siblings, of course they were worried about her. They’d probably been wondering were she was since before he’d even brought it up. Now that he was looking, he could see that Jon and Sansa’s eyes were darting around the same way his had been. He opened his mouth to apologize when the thought struck him.

She wasn’t with Jon. He was her brother, and Gendry had assumed that she wouldn’t stray far from him if she’d found him. Her family meant everything to her. But Jon and Sansa weren’t her only family. She still had one brother that wasn’t with them.

“The Godswood,” Gendry whispered.

“What was that?” Davos asked.

“She’s in the Godswood,” he breathed. “I’d stake my life on it.”

“Why do you say?” Sansa asked, already beginning to move in that direction, prompting the rest of the party to follow her lead. 

“Your brother is the only person who didn’t move during the battle,” Gendry reasoned. “She’d find him first.” Sansa spared him an intense look as they moved, nodded to herself and began to walk faster.

As the four of them reached the Godswood, they took in the absolute carnage that awaited them. There were layers of bodies leading a path to the Heart Tree, dead and Iron Born alike. As they reached the final ring of them, Gendry heard Lady Sansa’s breath catch in her throat. He followed her gaze to the body of Theon Greyjoy in the snow. He saw Sansa begin to steel herself as if to continue forward, when Theon took a very wet, gasping breath. The sound was horrific. An absolute death rattle. He wasn’t dead yet. He _wasn’t dead yet_.

Sansa gave a choked cry, collapsing to the ground near his face. She whispered his name, brushing his hair from his face. He didn’t give any signs that he heard her, or knew that they were there at all. Theon choked in air one more time before he completely stilled, his eyes going listless and empty in the way Gendry’d seen a thousand dead men’s do. Sansa pulled her hands back to herself, coated in his blood. This was private. Gendry looked away to find Arya. He shouldn’t watch her sister grieve.

His eyes immediately caught on the form of Arya standing by Bran at the Heart Tree. Before her was a pile of ice that looked like shattered glass. Her eyes watched her sister, but then like magnets, came up to connect with Gendry’s. Then, like he did in the courtyard that first day, he breathed her name on impulse. 

She didn’t smile this time. 

He didn’t expect her to.

Gendry’s fingers fully relaxed their grip and his hammer thumped to the ground where he stood. Then his feet took him of their own accord forward, towards her. Arya didn’t move to him at first, but when he was only a few feet away, he watched her shutter out a breath. She dropped the dagger he hadn’t even registered her holding, and flung herself into his arms like she had on that first day. 

Gendry wrapped his arms as tightly around her as he could. Her bloodied face buried in his chest, and he rested his face against the top of her head, quickly planting a kiss there and hoping her siblings hadn’t seen him do it.

After a heavy moment of silence, Arya’s cracked voice whispered, “I killed him.”

“Who?” Gendry asked, pulling back to see her face.

“The Night King,” Bran answered for her. Gendry’s head snapped up, looking at the Three Eyed Raven, and then dropped back to Arya. She nodded her confirmation, and Gendry took in a huge breath, letting it back out very slowly.

“You did it?” Jon asked from behind them. 

“I did,” Arya said. 

Jon came over and placed a hand on her shoulder. Gendry let Arya slip from his arms as she gave Jon a huge hug. He tried not to feel empty without her beside him. She pulled back quickly to go to Sansa and hold her as well. Jon moved to check on his little brother, and Gendry stood there feeling suddenly useless. He picked up his hammer and Arya’s dagger, not knowing what else to do.

“Let’s head inside,” Davos suggested, walking over to drop his hand to Gendry’s shoulder though he was speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. “Now that the dead will stay as they are, they can be left until we’ve all rested and dressed out wounds.”

The group hummed their agreement, and began their trek back towards the Great Hall. Jon was pushing Bran’s chair, Sansa and Arya in step with each other. Though she said something to her sister Gendry didn’t catch, and then dropped back to where he was walking. She took pace with him, reaching out to take her blade and tucked it back into it’s sheath. She took advantage of Gendry’s suddenly free hand, linking their hands together. He gave her a comforting squeeze, and she squeezed back.

The now six of them found their way into the Great Hall. It looked like the Northern men had already begun to turn it into an infirmary or rest space of sorts. The benches had been arranged in a way that was easy to move through, or to carry the injured to where they could be helped. They spent the next few hours in there. Sansa and Jon acting their part as the King in the North and Lady of Winterfell, going from person to person and checking on them. Even if Jon wasn’t technically a king anymore, Gendry thought his people still treated him like one. 

Arya and Bran were still by him, sitting at the first open table they could find. Bran observed the activity around him with the bland passiveness that Gendry had become used to in his limited interaction with the man. Davos had slipped away to follow Melisandre when she walked through the hall and outside. 

Gendry felt his pulse jump when Arya rested her head against his shoulder, curling into his side slightly. He wondered if she had gotten any sleep before the battle like he had. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, blushing furiously when he saw Bran staring at them. He looked away after a moment, but something in his face was more alive than he had ever seen before.

“Gendry,” Arya mumbled. 

He hummed.

“I want to go to bed,” she said.

“I’ll get your sister,” he said, shifting to get up.

She gripped his arm tightly, huffing a laugh. “No, stupid, I want _us_ to go to bed.”

“Oh, you—” he stuttered. “Oh.”

She smiled softly at him. “How are you more nervous now than before?”

“Because Jon will kill me if he sees me taking his little sister to bed.”

“He won’t.”

“Sansa would,” he argued. “And Bran is _right there._ ”

“Sansa knows I’m a woman grown, and will let me do as I please,” she leaned up to kiss his cheek softly. “And Bran doesn’t care about things like that anymore.”

Gendry shot a look to her brother, but his eyes were completely white and he didn’t seem to be anywhere near paying attention to them. “Alright, milady, take me to your room.”

Arya stood, pulling him along by the hand through the winding corridors of Winterfell. She seemed to hold her breath as she pushed open the door to her room, letting out a loud sigh as it was clear none of the dead had made it that far inward. Her room was untouched, in fact it looked like a servant had brought her clean water for washing sometime earlier in the night. 

Arya walked to the water basin quickly, dropping her hands in and splashing it over her face. She beckoned Gendry over and they took their time helping each other wipe down. Gendry was careful to clean her head wound thoroughly, and she took equal care with his cuts. They stripped down and climbed into her bed, which honestly felt like a cloud to Gendry.

They laid in silence, Gendry on his back and Arya lying over his chest. He ran his hands through her tangled hair. “Was—” he started. He wasn’t sure if he should ask, but the question in her eyes when she looked up at him prompted him to continue. “Was his, uh, the face what you expected?”

Arya frowned for a moment, clarity coming to her as she remembered their conversation about death a few days earlier. She cracked a tiny, painful smile. Her eyes filled quickly with tears. “No,” she whispered.

Gendry pulled her tightly to him, wrapping her up in his arms as she quietly cried. He dropped kisses to everywhere he could reach. He nudged her face up to his, dropping kisses to her cheeks, tasting the salt of her tears on his lips. Eventually his lips found his way to hers, caressing them gently. She stopped her tears quickly, never having been one to cry much before, and he doubted that had changed much since they were children. He still felt honored that she still trusted him with her vulnerability like this.

“I lied before,” she whispered between kisses. 

“About what?”

“It wasn’t just to see what it was like,” she looked into his eyes meaningfully. “It was always going to be you, if it was anyone.”

_Oh_ , he thought dumbly. 

Arya smiled brighter than she had all night. “Are you going to say anything, or just stare at me?”

“What should I say?” he asked.

“Anything.”

He thought for a moment. “I love you.”

She gasped, flushing red. “That’s—that is _not_ what I meant!”

“I won’t take it back,” he shrugged. “It’s true.”

“Idiot,” she murmured, tucking her head under his chin. “I love you, too.”

“What was that?” he teased.

“Shut up, you heard me,” Arya huffed into the skin of his throat.

“I don’t think I did,” he disagreed. “You see, milady. I spend so much time in the forge hitting metal, it’s quite damaged my hearing. Milady High wouldn’t understand, too safe away in her castle to hear the banging in her forge—” Arya scoffed, shoving him hard. He rolled away, nearly slipping from the bed to the floor.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she declared, fond exasperation in her tone. “I don’t love you anymore. Get out of my bed.”

“Of course milady, as you wish,” Gendry grinned, making like he was going to get up. Arya caught his arm quickly, yanking him back to where he was.

“Gendry,” she scolded. He laughed, relaxing back into her bed. She practically crawled back into his arms, wrapping herself around him like ivy on a castle wall. 

“Planning on sleeping like that?” he teased her.

“Yes,” she said. “We both somehow survived all of this, and I’m not letting you go again.”

Gendry felt a large smile crack across his face unbidden. He held her tighter, pressing the smile to her forehead.

“As milady commands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a little shmoopy, but they DESERVE IT damnit!
> 
> Also, Sansa and Jon were definitely out of their minds with worry for Arya, but Gendry is about as perceptive as a bed sheet to anything that isn't Arya and that's the tea.


End file.
